Software for Publication Bias

KEY POINTS • Various procedures for addressing publication bias are discussed elsewhere in this volume. The goal of this chapter is to show how these different procedures fit into an overall strategy for addressing bias, and to discuss computer programs that can be used to implement this strategy. • To address publication bias the researcher should proceed through a logical sequence of analyses. First, forest plots and funnel plots provide a visual sense of the data. Then, rank correlation and regression procedures ask whether or not there is evidence of bias, while the failsafe N and its variants ask if the entire effect size may be attributed to bias. Finally, trim and fill and the cumulative forest plot offer a more nuanced perspective, and ask how the effect size would shift if the apparent bias were to be removed. • The computer programs discussed are Comprehensive Meta Analysis, Stata, MetaWin, and RevMan. We show how the researcher would address publication bias using each of these programs in turn. The chapter closes with a subjective assessment of each program’s strengths and weaknesses. • The appendix includes a list of additional resources, including web links to data sets and to step-by-step instructions for running the publication bias procedures with each of the programs.